


Writer's Cramp

by zenonaa



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: F/M, Togafuka Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2392232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenonaa/pseuds/zenonaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Have you ever based a character on him? Does he inspire your stories?”</p><p> “Perhaps... I didn’t even know he existed at the beginning of my career.”</p><p>“Ah, he still could have been in your earlier stories.”</p><p>Book signings sound so glamorous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Writer's Cramp

Only well-established authors got writer’s cramp at book signings. The events sounded so glamorous, with a winding line of people all waiting for one person to sign their name in a book. Those two words, ‘book signing’, evoked images of authors reading excerpts to hushed crowds crammed inside an outlet of a renowned bookshop chain. Of aching hands smudged with ink and heavy eyelids and hours and hours of deep discussions pertaining to the author’s books. In reality, many authors took part in book signings that were attended almost exclusively by a handful of fans and those in the author’s social network.

Touko could recall her first book signing: the local bookshop had hosted it and she lacked the charisma of the self-important loudmouths at other tables, who waved their books to draw in curious shoppers. They invited family and friends to fuel their illusion of popularity, hoping it would be enough to convince people to buy their books, and they unloaded smooth talk that teased the flaps of customers’ wallets.

Nevertheless, Touko had been an enigma of sorts and she had found herself swamped by fans while everyone else struggled to reach double digits with how many books they signed. She was ten at the time. Touko’s elementary school teacher convinced her to go. Others handed out flyers beforehand and advertised themselves fervently; she simply turned up and attention rolled her way. The other writers hated her for it. None of them said anything, but she could tell.

Again and again, bookshops asked for her to come. She hated making appearances but went because the adults in her life told her to. Bookshops wanted business. They wanted money. Authors appearing at their venues gave them all the advertising they could desire. No one cared for things not involving profit - they didn’t get her to do signings to inspire people, and that disgusted her. It didn’t surprise her, because people always used others for their own gain, but it disgusted her all the same.

Time passed. The queues grew longer. People expected her to stand on a stage and introduce herself first. Hours she once spent at a wobbly table scribbling in a notebook as she waited for someone to wander up to her became bombarded with wave after wave of fans. And God, did they drive her to grinding frustration with their questions and misinterpretations.

Only well-established authors got writer’s cramp at book signings and she wished others would share her pain.

At earlier signings, back when the queues were shorter compared to their current length, Touko had the opportunity to talk with her fans. Or, to be more precise, to be talked at, because she never said more than necessary. A good writer always kept their word usage to a minimum.

“Fukawa-sama, you’re my favourite author!”

“Fukawa-sama, are your books inspired by your life?”

“How much money do you make, Fukawa-sama?”

“If I give you an idea for a book, will you write it?”

“Can I be a character in your next book, Fukawa-sama?”

Later on, to fit more people into a realistic timeframe, the venue’s employees told fans in the queue to write on a post it note whatever they wanted Touko to write in their book. People stuck the note onto the page they wanted Touko to sign and she would do so. Questions were to be kept to a minimum.

Touko’s hand ached.

The frequency of her book signings crawled into a spluttering of occasions after her first several books were published. Other things devoured her attention. She focused on school. She focused on keeping Genocider Syo a secret. She sat in her room until the arrival of morning mist, smearing correction fluid over handwritten annotations that didn’t belong to her. When she could still see the grotesque words under the opaque whiteness that was too white and pure for a dirty girl like her, she carved grooves into her fingertips as she shredded paper.

Around her, the bookshop hummed with voices. Touko scrawled her signature at the bottom of the book’s first page. The owner of the book - a woman with a prominent nose - picked it up and hurried off, probably intending to put it up for auction once at home.

“How long did it take you to write your first book?”

“Who do you contact to get a book published?”

“What’s the best way to write, on paper or on a computer? Which do you prefer?”

“Will you be here tomorrow?”

“I brought some books from home... Could you sign them for me?”

Touko’s writing stagnated when she enrolled at Hope’s Peak. Oh, she still wrote, but it felt like a list of chores which needed to be completed. With the dawning of a new stage of life, one would have thought that fresh ideas would be throwing themselves at her. Maybe they were and she simply hadn’t noticed them, but how could she have given them life when preoccupied with hiding from everyone her darkest secret? Now it was worse. Now she attended a prestigious school that had the media following its every move. Now she had endless expectations to meet.

Though she couldn’t really remember what exactly happened during those first two years. Many parts of that period were still hazed in amnesia.

She read the post it note and copied down the name.

The person this book belonged to murmured, “thanks,” before hugging it to his chest and scampering off. Touko found the reaction artificial and extravagant.

Someone else replaced him but she didn’t bother to so much as glance at them. They set a book down in front of her that was open on the first page with no post it note inside.

Her eyes narrowed. Weren’t the posters, flyers and constant parroting from the bookshop employees enough to remind people not to waste her time? She glared up, restrained politeness coating the ill-feeling on her tongue, but she flinched at the face that greeted her and forgot the rehearsed dialogue she had planned to say.

“You could try to act a little more surprised,” the person said, shifting most of his weight to one foot. “I thought seeing me here would cheer you up.”

Touko swallowed, finding new words in her transient confusion to say to him instead. “You... didn’t need to line up like everyone else...”

“I know, but I felt like queuing for more than an hour.” He stared down at the book, brushing his fingers horizontally across the page. “As you’re aware, I’m not particularly fond of your preferred genre, but this is your I-Novel so it should be more interesting for me...” A smile graced his lips and he looked up. “There are a few gaps I want to fill in my knowledge. Besides,” his eyes hardened, smile maintained but somewhat forced, “I wish to make sure you haven’t divulged anything too private about me.”

“I didn’t! You helped me with some of it... There shouldn’t be anything you’re not aware of.”

“Yes. I helped with some of it, the operative word being ‘some’.” The pads of his fingers flattened against the book and he thrust it toward her. “Address it to me and then sign your name underneath.”

She nodded and scribbled his name. On the line below, she added hers, almost writing out her maiden name by accident so she had to transform an ‘F’ into a thick ‘T’.

He took the novel back. “I’ll come collect you at five thirty, understood? We’re eating out tonight. Asahina offered to babysit for us.”

Touko nodded.

After he left, a woman with greying hair stepped forward and gave Touko a book. “Is that your husband?”

“Yes,” Touko said, reading the name on the woman’s post it note.

“Have you ever based a character on him? Does he inspire your stories?”

Touko considered. “Perhaps...” She wrote the woman’s name on the first page. “I didn’t even know he existed at the beginning of my career.”

“Ah, he still could have been in your earlier stories.” The woman’s eyes twinkled as she retrieved her book. “You’ve been such an inspiration to my granddaughter. Her parents died during the biggest, most awful, most tragic event in human history but your stories helped her cope and find a happy ending... She’s getting married next week, you know.” A chuckle. “Ah, I’m blabbering. Take care and God bless you, Togami-san.”

Only well-established authors got writer’s cramp at book signings and sometimes, just sometimes, it was worth it.

 


End file.
